[talking about the Holocaust]
'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.'

'But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.

Author: Alan Bennett